The Child in the Basement [NYTimes.com]

Samantha Sangenito 1/13/1512:00 PM

In theory, most of us subscribe to a set of values based on the idea that a human being is an end not a means. You can’t justifiably use a human being as an object. It is wrong to enslave a person, even if that slavery might produce a large good. It is wrong to kill a person for his organs, even if many lives might be saved.

And yet we don’t actually live according to that moral imperative. Life is filled with tragic trade-offs. In many different venues, the suffering of the few is justified by those trying to deliver the greatest good for the greatest number.

[For more of this story, written by David Brooks, go to http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01...ref=opinion&_r=0]

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